


Those are pearls that were his eyes.

by orange_crushed



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 9x09: Holy Terror, Angst, M/M, Past Character Death, Season/Series 09, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:44:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I was going to die</i>, he thinks. It’s a selfish thought, and entirely true. He was going to live like this, hopefully someday in a room like this, comfortable and warm with possessions and a bed, marked with evidence of his accomplishments or at least of his tastes and thoughts. He was going to live a human life and then die a human death, maybe leaving behind notepads and empty sneakers and a laptop still on standby mode.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(<i>9x09 episode coda, warning for character death</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those are pearls that were his eyes.

He isn’t hungry anymore. This is something he realizes when he is halfway across the state of Nebraska, in his stolen car. He hasn’t stopped for food or drink or to use the facilities in eight hours, and his stomach isn’t rumbling, doesn’t ache; there’s no pressure in his bladder or cramping in his legs, no heaviness in his head or stiffness in his shoulders. He feels these things like phantom sensations: ache and want. He knows what he ought to feel like. What he has felt like for weeks: raw like a nerve sometimes, sleepy and worn down like an old-fashioned pencil other times. He ought to feel something, but he doesn’t. There is dried blood on his collar and his skin registers the sensation of it, without complaint. It’s inconsequential. His hands go tight around the steering wheel, like they sometimes did around the handle of the mop or the base of a mug, times when he was working and his mind was elsewhere, focused on unpleasant things, unwanted thoughts. He recognized it then- and recognizes it now- as a symptom of mounting panic. One of the things humans sometimes felt when they were overcome, overwhelmed, when their thoughts swirled in uncontrollable eddies and down the side of unseen cliffs. He doesn’t understand the mechanism, now. He’s not afraid at the moment. At least, he doesn’t think he is.

He takes the next exit abruptly and stops at a gas station, buys a bottled water and a danish after a couple of seconds of deliberation, and then sits outside in the car and eats the food and drinks the water. It feels cool and good but it doesn’t give him a rush of pleasure, of gratitude, absurd swelling emotions that always marked the end of his human fasts. Once a few weeks ago he ate a sandwich someone gave him outside a Burger King and sat afterwards in the park, crying silently with the heels of his hands over his eyes. Castiel sits in the driver’s seat and stares down at the danish wrapper curled in his fingers. He crumples it but doesn’t let it go.

When he gets to North Platte the crime scene’s already been cleared; he goes to the coroner’s office and flashes a badge and they leave him alone with three bodies, all burned on the inside but whose faces are peaceful, placid. All of them are wearing crosses around their necks. Castiel finds an identical tattoo on two of them and copies it down in a notepad the way he’s seen Sam do. He might be able to trace others with it. When he leaves and returns to the car his cell phone is ringing, vibrating wildly against the seats. He’s missed five calls from Dean.

"Cas," Dean says, into the phone. "Cas, I need you."

"I thought," Castiel begins, but Dean cuts him off with something that sounds like a sob.

"I need you," he says, "I need you."

Castiel drives through the evening and into the night without stopping. When he gets to the bunker he calls Dean again and Dean opens the door for him, leads him down the stairs and through the hallways with his shoulders slumped and his eyes red and glassy. Castiel doesn’t know what it is Dean needs him to do, but it’s probably something about the angel tablet, or about Sam. Perhaps the fake Ezekiel left him, and Dean needs him healed. Castiel can do that again, very probably. He can do all kinds of things again. But Dean doesn’t take him to Sam, but to the cold storage room. Dean flips on a light and there’s a body on the table under a sheet. Castiel freezes. “It’s Kevin,” Dean says. “He- the angel in Sam just- Gadreel, he-“

“ _Gadreel?_ ” Castiel interrupts. “Dean, he’s-“

"I know!" Dean yells, anguished. He puts his hands over his face. "I fucked up! I fucked up so bad, I fucked everything up," he says, and sucks in a huge breath, rattles it out again. "He killed Kevin. Right in front of me, I couldn’t even," he says. "Kid trusted me, and I- I didn’t do a fucking thing. And now that shitbag’s in the wind and I have no clue where he’s going, if Sam’s even alive in there." Castiel goes to the table and pulls the sheet back. "Jesus," Dean says, beside him, and turns his back, puts his hand on the edge of the table. Kevin’s eyes are gone, burned from their sockets. Castiel doesn’t shudder at the sight, turn away in horror, even though there is something hot and sharp curling suddenly at the bottom of his gut. He feels- he doesn’t know what he feels. He should feel anger, righteous wrath. The desire for justice. That is what an angel might feel. Instead he feels sick. Like he’s going to vomit on his own shoes, on this floor, spill out the danish he tried to eat. He really might. How strange. "Say something," Dean tells him, into the silence.

"I can’t bring him back," Castiel says. "I’m sorry. I wish I could. I don’t have that kind of power anymore." He pulls the sheet back over Kevin’s face, carefully, gently. His hands feel unsteady, so he puts them back at his sides. Perhaps there’s something wrong with this grace after all, something off. His head feels light. "I’m sorry," he repeats. "I can’t do what you called me to do."

"What?" Dean says. His face screws up. "Cas, I-"

"I can go," Castiel says.

"Please don’t," Dean says. "Please don’t go." He reaches out for Castiel’s sleeve and suddenly Castiel realizes that Dean is alone here, or would be without him. He can picture Dean sitting here staring at the white sheet for hours, and knows that is exactly what he’s been doing. 

"Okay," Castiel says. "I won’t."

 

 

 

Dean insists that he take the spare room, gives him a pillow and blanket of his own, shows him where the showers are, and the kitchen, as if Castiel needed those things now. He asks Castiel if he’s eaten, says he could make him something, a sandwich, some soup, is he hungry. Castiel blinks at him. “Not anymore,” he says, and something in Dean’s face goes blank and still.

"Oh," he says. "Right."

When Dean goes into his own room to lie sleeplessly on top of the covers- Castiel doesn’t need to be invisibly present to know what’s happening- Castiel wanders the bunker and takes stock. He examines the library and finds it surprisingly comprehensive, even if the archives seem to be a jumble. He looks at the progress they’ve made in the communications room and reads their notes on the angel-tracking apparatus. He thinks of a few suggestions he might offer Dean on how to program the algorithms that would recognize angelic wavelengths. He could use Castiel as a test subject, see if the machine registers his presence. Another useful thing. It might make it easier to find Sam. And then Castiel finds Kevin’s room and stands in it for a long time, staring at the notes pinned on the walls, the photographs and pictures from magazines. The floor is a tangle of clothes and stacks of books, headphone cords coiled together, a couple of empty cereal boxes. It is a microcosm of Kevin’s life, the many peaks and valleys and unfinished sentences. It is a mess. Castiel looks for a long time and then kneels down, grabs the clothes in handfuls and puts them into a laundry basket. He stacks the books by subject close to the door, where he can take them back to the library. He puts the headphones and hairbrushes and other small plastic things into the bedside drawers. He makes the bed neatly, and then sits down on it. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why he’s done any of this, except that he knows Kevin deserves _something_. Something infinitely better than this. Something more than Castiel can give. Still, it is not the kind of thing an angel would do, not the kind of task an angel would busy himself with.

_I was going to die_ , he thinks. It’s a selfish thought, and entirely true. He was going to live like this, hopefully someday in a room like this, comfortable and warm with possessions and a bed, marked with evidence of his accomplishments or at least of his tastes and thoughts. He was going to live a human life and then die a human death, maybe leaving behind notepads and empty sneakers and a laptop still on standby mode. His body- his vessel, no, he doesn’t know anymore- was already older than Kevin’s, by a decade at least. He should have died first. That would have been the appropriate thing. Now he will outlive them all, if he survives. If the war ends and he outlasts it, they will all die before him, Dean will die before him, and he will continue to exist, the way he was intended to keep existing. He will remain.

That thought should be comforting, a return to order. He crouched in alleyways and felt the cold and feared for his own life, so very recently: he should be glad about this. But he isn’t. He isn’t.

 

 

 

In the small hours of the morning after Dean has finally slept for a while, Castiel sheds his shirt and slacks and crawls into bed with him and Dean startles awake, registers that it’s Castiel, and stares at him in blurry-eyed surprise. Castiel curls his cool hands against Dean’s ribs and closes his eyes and rests his head on top of the pillow, feels the softness of it without truly relishing the sensation. He can’t get there, back to that place where the feeling of warmth would flood through him and unravel him from spine to toes, melt him and his human senses in animal joy. He feels like all his nerve endings have been snipped away, like the world is gone. He can sense infinite things beyond himself, the tides and the circulation of the planet and he can feel heaven again in its might, but he cannot simply feel _good_ anymore. It hurts. It hurts so badly his eyes well up with unshed tears. He is a broken thing, he is not good anywhere, he is never right.

"Cas," Dean says, softly, "are you crying?"

"No," he lies. Dean hesitates for a second and then tugs him forward with both arms around his back, until Castiel is curled against Dean’s chest, head tucked under his chin, listening to the steady beat of Dean’s heart through the skin and flesh above it.

"Glad you’re here," Dean says, above and around him. Castiel feels the words rumble through his lungs, up his throat, into Castiel’s ears. "Really glad." Dean rubs a small circle on his back. Castiel feels himself unknotting there, feels the muscles relax a fraction. He didn’t realize he was holding himself so still, so stiff. He is forgetting his body again, in small ways. Until Dean touches him. They lie like that in silence for a long time, until Dean’s breath evens out, and Castiel thinks he’s asleep. Castiel’s arms are folded tightly to his chest but they don’t hurt. He wonders how long they can stay like this, how long before Dean comes back to himself and pushes them apart, if he will, if he would. And then Dean sighs. "This is," he says, and stops himself. Castiel can feel his body tighten in anxiety. So Castiel presses his lips to Dean’s chest briefly, barely a kiss, and Dean’s breath comes out in the faintest little gasp. "Cas," he says. He rolls back a little bit and then they’re eye-to-eye and Castiel can see how bare his face is, how sad. "This is- I thought about this," he says. "When you were human. I thought we might, um. I wanted to."

"I’m not human anymore," Castiel says, and Dean’s face crumples.

"I know," he says.

"I don’t know what I am," Castiel says. Dean looks surprised.

"You’re an angel."

"I don’t know." Castiel feels a hot flash of shame, something that ought to be nearly impossible. "I should be- I should be myself again," he says. "I should be _more_. I thought I would be more.” He can’t look at Dean anymore, so he closes his eyes. “I think I’m less,” he admits.

"No," Dean says. Castiel feels Dean’s hands against his face, thumbs on his cheekbones under his eyes. "Cas, look at me." Castiel opens his eyes and Dean is above him, looking intense. "Cas, you’re- you’re fine. Okay? You’re fine. However you are."

"I’m afraid to die," Castiel says. "But I want to die. I think I want to die. I don’t want to be this anymore, I don’t want to be anything, I want to be with you. I don’t want anyone to die anymore, I don’t want _you_ to die and I-” he says, and Dean cuts him off with a kiss, a hard kiss that Castiel gives back to him; he pulls them together and they roll down onto the mattress and kiss until there’s no air left, until Castiel can feel heat in his fingertips and in his chest, at every point where they touch. It’s real and it’s good and he doesn’t know how, doesn’t know how this is the only thing that can reach him, the only thing that he can feel. “I love you,” Castiel says, in a rush, between the moment when Dean pulls back for air and leans down again, opens his mouth over Castiel’s and inhales him, licks the curve of his lip. “I love you, you’re the only thing-“

Dean makes him come and for a moment he is human again, a man with dizzy eyes and slack legs and a hot mouth kissing his throat; his hands curl in Dean’s hair and don’t let go. Dean comes over him and then falls asleep in the wet spot and Castiel lies there awake for hours, coming down, rubbing his hand slowly over the meat of Dean’s arm, over and over. He doesn’t sleep.

 

 

 

In the afternoon they burn Kevin’s body; they cut and haul and stack logs in the woods and Dean brings Kevin out over his shoulder, carries him half a mile to the clearing, and then tells Castiel to wait a second. Dean sprints back to the bunker and Castiel is left there alone with Kevin, Kevin bound up in his sheet, resting on top of the wood. Castiel touches a hand to his covered forehead, the way he would if he could heal him, fix him. Nothing happens. Castiel didn’t expect it to. But some small part of him hoped. And it was not the stolen grace inside him.

"I promise you," Castiel says. "Your work will be finished. It will not be in vain." It is the kind of promise an angel would make, but it doesn’t seem adequate. Castiel thinks about the notes left in his room, the chaos of life cut short. "I’m sorry," Castiel says. "I’m sorry your life was hard. We made it very hard for you." He is glad nobody is here to listen to this, not even Dean, who would try to shift the blame entirely onto himself. They all take part in this. "I’m sorry it’s over. It doesn’t seem like enough."

Dean comes back with a portable cd player; he’s flushed from running, and also from embarrassment. He shows Castiel the cd and asks if this is a stupid thought, if this would be wrong. As if Castiel were any kind of judge of human customs.

"It’s dumb, right?" Dean says. "It’s a dumb idea."

"No," Castiel says. "I don’t think it is."

So Kevin burns to the _Return of the Jedi_ soundtrack played out of a set of small speakers. Dean cries and wipes his face on his sleeve, unashamed in front of Castiel, and Castiel stands and watches until the fire is out. By the evening there is nothing left to bury, but they dig a hole anyway and scrape everything, all the ashes, into the ground, and cover it over with earth and then with branches and leaves, trying to cover their tracks as much as they can. Dean stops speaking for a while and goes to take a shower, to wash away the grime and dust. Castiel thinks about willing himself clean, but instead he peels out of his filthy clothes and follows Dean into the bathroom. Dean’s confused but finally he shuts his eyes and lets Castiel wash him, head to toe, lets Castiel scrub the leaves out of his hair and the streaks of dirt off his face and the muck from under his fingernails. Castiel is slow and methodical and clinical about it. When he’s finished Castiel rinses himself and shuts the water off and gets a towel to wrap around Dean. It’s almost ten o’clock but neither of them are hungry, for a variety of reasons.

They lie in bed later and talk about how they’re going to find Sam. There are ways. Having grace again will make it infinitely easier. Castiel does not say that out loud, but he knows Dean is aware of it. Castiel does not mind. He does not mind being useful. He is only newly aware that there are other things to be which are even better than useful, more needed.

"When this is," Dean starts, and Castiel knows he is trying not to say, _when this is over_ , because that seems like too grandiose a lie for them. “When things are better,” Dean says, “will you stay?”

"Will I stay an angel?"

"No," Dean says. "I mean, will you stay here?"

"Yes," Castiel says. He doesn’t have to think about it. But he does anyway, endlessly: he turns it over and over in his mind. The pyre in the woods, the empty room. This is the future for one of them, or for both of them. Whatever happens, Castiel will have to live through it, or else die, too. He knows which one he is leaning towards. He misses the way the shower feels when his back is tired, he misses the taste of coffee with sugar and cream, bitter and strong and sweet on his tongue; he misses the moment when a strained muscle relaxes fully, from pain to pleasure. He misses the line between hunger and anticipation, between having a need and having the need fulfilled. He has missed power and safety, he has missed freedom from want. But he misses the wanting more. It’s totally absurd. It’s ludicrous and wrong. It is incredibly human.

"Cas?"

"I’ll stay," Castiel says, and rolls closer.

 

 

 

__ Of his bones are coral made;  
those are pearls that were his eyes:  
nothing of him that doth fade  
but doth suffer a sea-change  
into something rich and strange.


End file.
